Hi, I’m Rob!

I work with adults who spend a lot of time in their heads and sometimes have a harder time making sense of what they’re feeling, what they need, or what they want to do next. You might find yourself thinking through something from every possible angle, trying to reason your way out of a difficult feeling, or understanding yourself pretty well but still feeling stuck.

Sometimes the problem isn’t that your life is falling apart. It’s that you’ve become disconnected from parts of it. A relationship has changed. You’ve lost someone or something important. You’re questioning your direction, your beliefs, or the life you thought you would have. Or things are mostly okay, but you have a nagging sense that something isn’t quite working.

I help clients get less tangled up in their thoughts, make more room for difficult emotions, and reconnect with the people, pursuits, and values that make their lives meaningful.

I offer in-person therapy in downtown Chicago and online therapy throughout Illinois.

Who I Help

A lot of my work is with people who are thoughtful and self-aware but still feel stuck. You may understand your patterns intellectually and still find yourself repeating them. You might know you’re overthinking and still be unable to shut your mind off. Or you may be going through something that can’t simply be “fixed”—grief, uncertainty, a change in identity, or questions about what matters now.

I work with adults of all genders and often help clients navigating:

• Grief, loss, and major life changes
• Anxiety, worry, and overthinking
• Depression, low motivation, or feeling disconnected
• ADHD, procrastination, and difficulty following through
• Relationship difficulties and emotional disconnection
• Difficulty identifying or expressing emotions
• Career questions, creative blocks, and uncertainty about direction
• Spiritual or religious questions and struggles
• Feeling stuck despite understanding the problem

Grief, Loss & Life After Things Change

Grief doesn’t always follow the timeline we expect it to.

You may be grieving the death of someone you love, the end of a relationship, the loss of a community, or a future you thought you were going to have. Sometimes grief is immediate and consuming. Other times, it shows up months or years later in ways that are harder to recognize.

Therapy isn’t about helping you “move on” or finding the right way to grieve. Some losses aren’t problems to solve. We can make room for what you’ve lost while also paying attention to what your life is becoming now.

That might involve learning how to carry grief without letting it consume every part of your life, figuring out how a loss has changed you, or reconnecting with relationships, creativity, work, and experiences that still matter to you.

Therapy for Men

Many of the men I work with are used to figuring things out on their own. They may be comfortable solving problems at work or handling practical responsibilities but have a much harder time knowing what to do with anxiety, sadness, loneliness, grief, conflict, or uncertainty.

Sometimes that shows up as staying busy, withdrawing, becoming irritable, intellectualizing what’s happening, or trying to solve an emotional problem as quickly as possible. You may care deeply about your partner, friends, or family and still struggle to communicate what’s happening internally.

Therapy doesn’t require becoming a completely different kind of person or talking about feelings simply for the sake of talking about them. We can work on understanding what’s happening internally, communicating more directly, and building stronger emotional connections. And we can do that while keeping the work practical and grounded.

The goal isn’t to make you “more emotional.” It’s to give you more flexibility in how you respond to what you feel—and more ability to show up how you want to in the relationships that matter to you.

What Working Together Looks Like

My style is patient, curious, active, and collaborative, with a healthy dose of dry humor. Therapy with me isn’t about sitting back while you report on your week. We’ll slow down the moments where you tend to get stuck and look closely at what your mind is doing, what you’re feeling, how you respond, and whether that response is actually getting you where you want to go.

I’m especially interested in the gap between insight and action. You can understand exactly why you do something and still keep doing it. Our work is about helping you respond differently when the actual moment arrives—not just having a better explanation for it afterward.

We’ll also spend time clarifying what matters to you. When anxiety, depression, ADHD, grief, or uncertainty takes over, life can gradually become organized around avoiding discomfort, keeping up, or simply getting through the day. Therapy can help you reconnect with what you care about and begin moving toward it, even before you feel completely ready.

Creativity, Music & Artists

Creativity can be an important part of how we understand ourselves, communicate, and make meaning of our experiences.

As a musician myself, I understand that creative work can be deeply rewarding while also being tied up with identity, vulnerability, comparison, motivation, rejection, and self-doubt. For artists and other creative people, it can sometimes be difficult to separate how you feel about what you’re making from how you feel about yourself.

I work with musicians, artists, and other creative people around these concerns, as well as anxiety, ADHD, relationships, grief, career uncertainty, and the challenge of sustaining a creative life alongside everything else adulthood requires.

Music can also occasionally become part of therapy itself when it feels natural and useful. A song, piece of music, or creative process can sometimes give us another way to understand an experience that is difficult to put into ordinary conversation.

You don’t need to be an artist or musician to work with me, and creativity doesn’t need to be part of our sessions. It’s simply another avenue we can use when it fits who you are and how you make sense of the world.

ADHD, Overthinking & Getting Unstuck

ADHD isn’t always just about attention. It can affect motivation, organization, emotional regulation, relationships, and the way you see yourself.

You may know exactly what needs to get done and still have trouble starting it. You may move between intense focus and complete avoidance, lose track of things that matter to you, or become frustrated that tasks other people seem to manage easily require so much effort.

Over time, those experiences can create another layer of self-criticism: Why can’t I just do this? Why am I like this? Why do I keep making the same mistake?

Rather than treating those thoughts as motivation, we’ll look at whether they’re actually helping. We can work on understanding how your mind operates, finding strategies that fit you, and learning how to move forward without waiting to feel perfectly focused, confident, or motivated first.

Spirituality, Religion & Meaning

Therapy can also be a place to talk about questions that don’t fit neatly into a diagnosis.

I work with clients navigating spiritual or religious struggle, changes in belief, questions about meaning or purpose, and complicated relationships with religious communities or traditions. You may be questioning beliefs you once took for granted, trying to decide what you still believe, grieving the loss of a community, or figuring out how spirituality fits into your life now.

You don’t need to arrive with a particular belief system, and my role isn’t to move you toward or away from one. We can make room for uncertainty and explore what these questions mean for you.

My academic and professional background includes an interest in contemplative science and experience in research, academic, mindfulness, and retreat settings. That background has made me comfortable sitting with questions that don’t necessarily have quick or simple answers.

Experience & Approach

I earned my Master’s in Clinical Social Work from the University of Chicago and my bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina. I also completed post-baccalaureate studies in psychology with a particular interest in contemplative science and have participated in research in medical and psychological anthropology.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is central to how I think about therapy. I focused my graduate studies on ACT and Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) and previously worked as an ACT research assistant with Portland Psychotherapy Clinic.

ACT isn’t about getting rid of every difficult thought or emotion. It helps us notice when we’re getting pulled around by our internal experiences, become more flexible in how we respond, and take action based on what matters to us.

I also draw from mindfulness-based, relational, cognitive behavioral, solution-focused, and strengths-based approaches depending on what you need. More than allegiance to any particular technique, I’m interested in whether what we’re doing together is helping you live differently outside the therapy room.

A Little About Me

Music has been an important part of my life for a long time, both personally and creatively, and it continues to influence how I think about connection, expression, and meaning.

My path to becoming a therapist wasn’t a straight line. Before landing here, I spent time in research, academic, and retreat settings. I’ve also explored mindfulness practice, music, and different ways of understanding human experience beyond symptoms and diagnoses. Those experiences continue to shape how I think about people and therapy.

I’m endlessly curious about the different ways people make sense of themselves and the world. I also appreciate a terrible pun more than I should. I believe therapy can involve serious work without requiring us to be serious every minute of it.